A new report from the Los Angeles Times suggests that the University of Southern California questioned whether or not Lori Loughlin’s daughters were athletes way before the college admissions scandal.
What happened: USC received information from high schools, who wondered why certain students were being admitted to the school as athletes.
- For example, Los Angeles’ Marymount High School — where Loughlin’s daughters attended — “doesn’t think either of the students are serious crew participants,” one USC employee wrote in an email, according to the Los Angeles Times.
- The university asked Donna Heinel, who worked for USC’s athletic department, to investigate the mater.
- It took Heinel one day to investigate. She told USC that Loughlin’s younger daughter, Isabella Rose, rowed competitively and that the USC coach thought “she has talent.”
- Heinel was later arrested and charged in the college admissions scandal for helping students get into the school.
- “Heinel was tasked with investigating the very fraud she allegedly perpetrated,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Read more: USC questioned whether Lori Loughlin’s daughters were really athletes a year before admissions scandal (The Los Angeles Times)
Context: This new finding comes as federal prosecutors shared new emails from the case in a new filed motion. Prosecutors rejected the claim by the defense attorneys that the feds were hiding information, USA Today reports.
- The new emails showed that the school offered to help Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, with their daughter’s application, according to USA Today.
- USC later explained that the help offered by the officials was nothing new.
- Loughlin and Giannulli, are accused of spending $500,000 in bribes so that their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose Giannulli, could be team crew recruits for USC.
Charges: The couple pleaded not guilty to all charges, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud; conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.